An Introduction to the Joseon Dynasty Uigwe

The Joseon-dynasty (1392∼1910) documents now commonly referred to as uigwe 儀軌are official records of the Superintendency (dogam 都監), a temporary office set up to plan and carry out special state rites. Uigwe were compiled after the completion of events such as royal weddings, funerals, the painting and copying of royal portraits, construction and repair of important palace buildings, etc. The documents were made in multiple copies to be kept in the palace as well as in the history archives (史庫)

In 1866, at the time of the incident called Byeong'in yangyo 丙寅洋擾or the Western turmoil in the cyclical year byeong'in, the French navy sacked Ganghwa Island and took many of the uigwe volumes from the Outer Gyujang-gak Library, known as Oe-Gyujang-gak 外奎章閣. This library had been built to accommodate the overflow of books from the main Gyujang-gak Library at Changdeok Palace, which contained most of the royal viewing copies. As the result of negotiations between the Korean and French governments for the return of the precious historical documents to Korea, the 297 uigwe volumes that had been kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) since 1866 have now returned to Korea.

What can one expect to find in these uigwe books that will further our understanding of Joseon culture? Depending on one’s area of interest, one might retrieve information on Joseon society, politics, economics, rituals, literature, art history, musicology, culinary history, and perhaps more. Of particular interest to the art historian is the extensive description of the visual culture of the court. There is a seemingly endless amount of documentation along with numerous illustrations of ritual performances, and also of court costumes, musical instruments, ceremonial utensils, and finally of interior decoration, notably, screen paintings--all of which were made for those special events. This lecture will highlight some of these features, drawing on the lecturer’s research on several categories of the uigwe, those documenting royal weddings, the painting and copying of royal portraits, palace banquets, and finally on royal funerals and related rites.

Yi Song-mi is Professor Emerita of Art History at the Academy of Korean Studies.. Previously, she served as Dean of the Graduate School of Korean Studies at the Academy. She served as a member of the National History Council of Korea and as the President of Korean Art History Association. She is a member of the editorial board of Archives of Asian Art. In February, 2001, she held the 21st Franklin Murphy Lectureship at the University of Kansas.  In September of 2011, she was awarded the medal of the "Order of Civil Merit (camellia)" for her advisory work for the government in the negotiation of the return of the euigwe (book of state rites) documents from France as well as for her research and publications on them.

Professor Yi was educated at Seoul National University (B.A.), the University of California at Berkeley (M.A.), and Princeton University where she received a Ph.D. degree in Art History. Her recent publications on Korean painting include the award winning  Joseon Dynasty books of Royal Wedding in Art Historical Perspective (Korean, 2008), Korean landscape Painting: Continuity and Innovation Through the Ages (2006), Western influence on Korean Painting of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Korean, revised and enlarged edition, 2008), and others. She has also contributed many articles to both Korean and English language journals.

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